The songwriter responsible for such truly classic rock-based records as Look Sharp, I’m the Man and Night and Day, who also dabbled in the orchestral world and spent a great deal of time in the jazz idiom — including on his last release, The Duke, a tribute to Duke Ellington — has returned to the more contemporary side of things with 2015’s Fast Forward

Recorded during sessions in Berlin, Amsterdam, New York and New Orleans, and with guest musicians including Bill Frisell, and members of Zuco 103 and Galactic, it’s a sprawling and diverse record that shows his pop chops are still in fine form, with catchy, memorable tracks such as If It Wasn’t For You, Junkie Diva and Keep On Dreaming.

But ask him about that, about whether or not the word resonates with him, and the 61-year-old is at a loss.

“I don’t know what it is. Define it for me and I’ll tell you what I think about it,” Jackson says. “Honestly, I don’t really know. ‘Pop’ is short for ‘popular’ so generally it’s been understood as music that’s been popular. But I don’t know what it is.

“I once read an interview with Bjork where the interviewer said, ‘Do you think of your music as pop music?’ and she says, ‘Well, my music is for everyone so therefore it’s pop …’

“I think pretty much everyone who ever tried to create music was hoping to connect with anyone and everyone and as many people as possible, so that makes it all pop.

“I don’t know. There’s no definition that is meaningful, to be honest. I’m just trying to make music.”

Prior to returning to Calgary on Monday for a Jack Singer Concert Hall show, Jackson spoke to the Herald about his latest album and more.

Q: Congratulations on the record.

A: Thank you. I’m quite pleased with it myself.

Q: It actually started out life as four separate albums before becoming this one epic record didn’t it?

A: Yes, it was supposed to be four EPs, and it turned out that no one really wanted to do that except me. (Laughs) So, yeah, it’s this rather large — well, it’s a double album really. The best way to hear it is on vinyl because then it literally is four sides … It’s four groups of four songs.

Q: As has been said before, it does hold together as one work, though.

Q: The reason for the different cities, was it because of the musicians you wanted to work with or was it the feeling of those living, breathing cities that you wanted to capture?

A: No, it was really mostly about the musicians. They’re all cities that have had some kind of importance in my life, that I know well. But they’re also all places where there were people that I wanted to work with. And in some cases the songs were kind of allocated quite deliberately. I mean the Berlin sessions has two songs that really had to be done in Berlin: If I Could See Your Face is a Berlin story; and then Goodbye Johnny is a translation of a German song. And there are a couple of other things, like Kings of the City is very much a New York song, and so on. But quite a lot of the songs, most of them, probably could have been recorded anywhere. It’s not a question of some kind of magical Amsterdam vibes getting into the tracks or anything like that. It’s really about the musicians.

Q: I have to ask you about the song If I Could See Your Face: you’ve said it’s a very specific story (of an honour killing) and a very angry story about trying to understand why people do what they do. There’s a definite helplessness in that anger, too.

A: It is a kind of helpless anger and incomprehension, like, “What do we do?” In Berlin, I’ve observed it all the time that I’ve been living there on and off, this Turkish culture which lives side by side with the German culture and has really nothing to do with it — it’s completely at odds with it, especially in a place like Berlin. I’m not for one minute saying they’re all running around murdering their sisters, like in this particular incident, but I think that there’s some real issues that a lot of people are scared to tackle head on because of political correctness and the idea of multiculturalism and so on. I can’t help ask the question how multicultural can you be if the cultures are radically opposed to each other. It’s an extreme example, of course, this case that happened in Berlin, and it’s not the only one …

It’s a pretty intense song, it’s not very typical of the album as a whole.

Q: Have you received any blowback from that song from people who may want to misrepresent you?

A: Not that I’m aware of. I mean a lot of people have asked about it, just wanted me to clarify it, which I can do to some extent but after all it is a song, and not an essay or political manifesto or something.

Q: The one song you have received blowback from is, of course, Junkie Diva, which some people have said is you attacking Amy Winehouse — but that couldn’t be further from the truth.

A: Well, not only that but it’s staggering to me that people are so sure that it has anything whatsoever to do with Amy Winehouse. Where did that come from? As far I’m concerned I wasn’t even thinking of Amy Winehouse when I wrote it. If you really want to know I was thinking of Billie Holiday. But, really, to the point it’s not really about the diva, it’s about the slightly creepy fan worship of self-destructive and tragic figures, where someone who has a very safe life somehow glamorizes someone who’s f—ed up and lives on the edge. It’s just a commentary on that and how it’s a little weird and there’s something a little sick about it. I don’t know where this Amy Winehouse thing started. I’ve actually seen it in print, someone just stating it as fact that this is a song about Amy Winehouse. So, I’m telling you it’s not about Amy f — king Winehouse, OK? (Laughs)

Q: That’s something you have to be used to by now, people picking apart your work and imposing their own beliefs on it.

A: Well, you know, they’re entitled and there’s nothing I can do about it. But it is very puzzling sometimes and sometimes frustrating and sometimes quite funny. I have a great example that I always use when people ask me about this, like the worst misrepresentation of my lyrics. I was approached on the street in London many years ago by a black guy who accused me of being a racist. And I said, “What the hell are you talking about?” And he quoted the first line of Is She Really Going Out With Him — “Pretty women out walking with gorillas down my street” — which he thought was about black guys with white girls, that I was a racist. And no matter what I said he wouldn’t believe me, and as far as he was concerned that was what it was. So, I mean, really, what can you do? (Laughs) I always feel like my lyrics are very clear, but what can I say?

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